Paint My Spirit Gold
by labonsoirfemme
Summary: Daenerys imports Essosian masquerades to Westeros, and Jon and Sansa find their way back to each other. Rated for mature content.


Written for the Game of Ships: Ghost Ships Challenge for Day Six: "Disguise."

Heavily influenced by the masquerade scene in Sofia Coppolla's _Marie Antoinette_ and can thus be read as a pushback against Medieval Stasis if you squint and/or care.

* * *

Arya slips through the door to Sansa's guest bedchamber just as Sansa's maids shake out her sister's dress, lower it to the floor so that she can step into it. Rolls of parchment and heavy tomes cover nearly every surface, so Arya has to shove some of them to the side so that she has space to sit down on the sofa—which she does, awkwardly.

"You're going to have to practice that again," Sansa chides over her shoulder, lifting her arms out of the way so that the two girls can tug the heavy black fabric to her hips and begin lacing her into it, "or everyone will know who you are. Pull your skirts out of the way with your hands first."

With a huff, Arya stands up and fluffs out the heavy brocade. "This sounded fun before, but it's just going to be a pain, I just know it." She's not worn a true skirt in ages other than her nightrails, but even those she cuts to above her knees. She has so many nightmares, after all, and she gets sick of waking up sweating and thinking she's trapped because of some useless fabric twisted 'round her legs.

Even Arya has to admit that this dress is beautiful, though, and probably the finest and girliest thing she's ever worn. It's a deep sapphire blue with bright gold trim, heavily embroidered with golden butterflies and wide belled sleeves. Any other night, Arya would have laughed in the face of whoever offered this gown to her, but tonight is special, and once she remembers how to sit down like Septa Mordane taught her to, once upon a time, she thinks that she could pass for the well-bred lady she was supposed to be. So she does what Sansa told her: gathers her skirts in her hands and pulls them out wide, sits down with a bit more care and grace than she normally would.

Sansa watches her in the looking glass and smiles. "Much better." Queen Daenerys says that this is a "masquerade," and it's meant to be the highlight of the diplomatic summit between the Queen of Westeros and the Queen in the North. No one had understood at first, and ravens flew back and forth across the continent, Daenerys explaining time and again to all the confused lords and ladies that the whole _point_ is that no one will know whom is whom, that there will be dancing and food and drink served throughout the night, and that it's a time for merriment, not bowing and scraping.

"Well, no one will recognize _you_," Arya notes. "Not with that hair."

Sansa tilts her head and turns her eyes to her own reflection in the looking glass. Her maids had twisted it up, southern-style, and then had the ingenious idea to use powder to color it white. "People would have known me right away," she replies, lifting a shoulder. Like Arya, she's in a new dress, specially made for the occasion. As the Queen in the North, every dress, every cloak, every piece of jewelry she owns screams _House Stark_ and _Winter is Coming_ with embellished direwolves and gray fabric and white trim. Unlike Arya's dress, Sansa's black gown lacks a contrasting color, though the vine motif has been done in glossy black thread so that it catches the light, and her neckline has been cut in a square, as is done in the Free Cities (according to her dressmaker, at least). It's as un-Stark as she could possibly be, which is exactly the point. She's played this not-Sansa role before, after all; she knows how to change herself.

"Just the mask, your Grace," one of the maids says, passing a piece of black myrish lace to Sansa, who holds it to her face while they pin the ends into her hair.

When they're done, the two girls step back and let Sansa turn around in the looking glass, tugging at the slim sleeves and neckline until she is satisfied. "So lovely, your Grace," one of them sighs. "Even lovelier with your hair lightened so."

Sansa agrees, sliding her hands over the close cut of the waist, and she decides then and there to offer Havrynt, the Myrish dressmaker that had been sent North by Daenerys to craft the gowns as a gesture of goodwill, a place at Winterfell. He'd loved his stay in the North; had been forever fascinated by the snow and weirwood trees and what he called the "harsh beauty" of Winterfell's ancient keeps and walls. He'd seemed just as sullen as Rickon when they'd all begun packing their trunks for the journey south and had spent their last few hours in the castle collecting bright red leaves from the godswood and blue roses from the bushes in the courtyard to keep pressed between the pages of his sketchbook for future inspiration.

With a final order to the maids to check on the little Prince Brandon before they turn in, Sansa and Arya leave the guest chamber that Daenerys and Aegon have put Sansa in and make their way towards the Throne Room. Though she lacks her armor and swords, Arya still walks a pace ahead of Sansa, her position as the Queen's Protector so settled into her bones that not even a fancy gown and loose hair can displace it.

They take the correct turns and stairwells in silent tandem; on their first day in King's Landing, Aegon had offered to give them a tour of the Red Keep, and Sansa had gracefully declined. _Arya and I were here as girls_, she'd told him, lacing her fingers together. _We remember it very clearly_. Of the three Targaryens greeting them at the foot of the Iron Throne, only Jon's eyes had fallen to her white knuckles, and Sansa considers that a victory.

Guests and entertainers mill about the Throne Room, chattering and laughing in groups along the walls and dancing to the music in the middle. Given the directive to not wear House colors and to disguise faces, Sansa is struck by the beauty of the scene before her before all else, and not with mapping out political factions. The guests have put on their best raiments, and the light from the torches and candles bounce off of jewels and leathers and shiny fabrics. Sansa's maids were not alone in their ingenuity either, because Sansa spots false red curls, pitch black braids, even hair that has been turned into frothy blues and sugary pinks.

A servant walks past with a tray of goblets and sweeps a deep bow. "Arbor Gold, my ladies?" he asks, voice raised above the music, and Arya and Sansa happily take him up on his offer.

The wine is delicious on her tongue – Arbor Gold is a true rarity north of the Neck, and even more so for the Queen in the North, who knows her coin is much better spent on freshly-split timber than on a cask of the most expensive wine in Westeros. Arya must feel the same, because Sansa watches her take a healthy swallow, eyes closing in delight behind her mask.

"Look! Food! It's so little!" Arya calls out, and dashes forward to follow another servant who carries a tray of something bright and sweet-looking high above his head. Sansa takes a step forward to follow her, but is intercepted by a man who holds out his hand and asks for a dance. There's no flash of recognition in his eyes, and Sansa is so thrilled and overwhelmed with the general atmosphere of anonymity and splendor that she agrees.

It's a high-spirited dance, and she catches snatches of the other couples' light-hearted conversations between her partner's japes as they whirl around the central corridor of the hall. _No one knows for sure who they are talking to, _she realizes_. So they can't even think about gossiping or speaking politics._ It's brilliant—absolutely brilliant, and Sansa can't believe that not a single person in Westeros had not yet figured such a wonderful game out before Daenerys imported it from Essos.

The music fades, and when she dips her head to her mysterious partner, he groans and catches her hands. "A beauty like you in a gown like that? You were _made_ for dancing. One more, I insist!" he pleads. A flash of blue in the corner of her eye has her agreeing—Arya has joined the dancers at the end of the line and with a tall man in a green mask and hair the same shade of brown Sansa had worn as Alayne.

The music begins again and she recognizes it immediately: it's one of her favorites from her childhood, a Riverlands dance that changes dance partners on the bridge. "It looks like I shall have to share you," her partner remarks lightly, meeting her in the middle of the dance floor. "My plan has failed."

Sansa laughs, stepping around him. "We are at the mercy of the musicians, I fear." He has to be a Riverlander, she decides, since he keeps pace with the beat much more naturally than the rest of the dancers. She hears the switch coming as the music rises, and he already has her hand in his to pass her off to her first bridge partner.

The moment Sansa's hand settles on his side and her shoulder catches right under his, she knows it's _him_. The surprise of it has her missing a step and catching the toe of her shoe on her gown, but he tightens his grip on her waist to keep her from falling. "Easy," he says under his breath, guiding her into the spin with sure hands. He smells of leather and pine-scented soap, and it makes her as weak in the knees now as it did a fortnight past when she'd leaned forward to embrace him and press a chaste kiss to his cheek.

But she says nothing to him, because he says nothing more, either. He surely doesn't recognize her with her white hair and black dress, face covered in lace. She can't tell for sure, anyway, because his mask juts forward over his eyes, casting them into shadow when she looks down at him from where he's lifted her into a twirl. And then the bridge ends, and she turns back to her partner. The rest of the dance is a haze, and even when it's over and Arya drifts to her side, color high in her cheeks and across her chest, Sansa still feels the phantom heat of his hands on her waist.

They run across Rickon—who had been told very firmly at dinner that he was to stay in his room—in a mere shirt and breeches with a rough cloth mask over his eyes that Sansa is sure was cut from his bedclothes. The little Lord of the Dreadfort is living up to his title, running amok with bared teeth and fingers clenched into claws, laughing in delight when he can surprise a group of women into yelps and shrieks. Sansa has half a mind to pull him aside and send him to his room, but Arya simply shrugs and says he would come right back as soon as their backs were turned.

"He's not a baby anymore," Arya says, and she's right. He's ten years old now, older than Arya was when they came to King's Landing with their father all those years past, and she'd been allowed free reign until it all went wrong. So Sansa holds her tongue and snatches a lemoncake from a tray as it passes by.

The pretense of the masquerade lowers the inhibitions of the guests, releases the primal, pent-up energy that the environment of the royal court stifles, and Sansa watches in amazement as strangers kiss freely behind pillars, laugh loudly at bawdy jokes, hold each other closer than the dances actually require. Women wander past with arms wrapped around each others' waists, men grasp each other by the backs of their necks and press their foreheads together in newfound friendships that will fade with the risen sun. The wine flows freely and the musicians keep the energy high, and it's not long before the partygoers become restless.

The cry goes up for _hide and seek, hide and seek!_ and everyone spills out of the doors, shrieking and laughing. No one claims to be "it" and it doesn't really matter, because all anyone wants to do is run around the Keep in disguise, explore the nooks and crannies of the buildings they wouldn't have dared to seek out before, not when their faces and allegiances were so readily apparent. Sansa watches Rickon run screeching into the godswood with one or two other young ones on his heels and she figures there are worse places for him to get lost in. In the melee and dark, she's lost Arya, too, but she's had three cups of Arbor Gold and the moon is beautiful and not a single person has looked at her strangely or guessed her identity correctly, so she's not worried at all.

She's always wanted to visit the Kitchens, and they're so close by, so she follows a couple of young girls in purple and blue gowns through the heavy double doors. When they go straight to explore what used to be the old working kitchens, back before they turned everything into apartments, she veers towards the staircase and heads up to the second floor to see which doors she might find unlocked.

The third one is—the knob turns easily under her hand, and then she's stepping over the threshold into the empty chamber. It's pitch black, so Sansa crosses to open the shutters and let moonlight in. No one lives here now it seems, what with the bedframe devoid of even a mattress, but Sansa still opens the trunk at the foot of the bed to peer inside, runs her fingers over the embroidery of the heavy quilts inside and takes a deep breath of the sweet cedar scent wafting from within. The fireplace's grate is empty, but the stonework of the mantle is exquisite—

"Sansa?"

She gasps and presses a hand to stomach, falling back a step in surprise. Jon stands in the doorway, his mask gone now and one hand on the jamb. "Taking advantage of the night to do some snooping like the others?" he asks with a tilt of his head.

He's smiling at her like he _knows_, and she clasps her hands in front of her. "How did you know it was me? Is the powder coming out of my hair?" She looks over her shoulder for a looking glass even though the room is dark, moonlight through the window or not. When she turns back around, Jon has crossed the floor to stand in front of the fireplace with her, and he reaches up to gently tug away the lace that covers her eyes.

"I would know you anywhere," he tells her, low and quiet, like he's telling her a secret he carries close to his heart. "No matter the color of your hair or if you've got some ridiculous scrap of fabric over your face. I could go blind tomorrow and I would still be able to pick you out of a room."

Her throat seizes at his words, so she swallows before she speaks—whispers, really—, "I thought you didn't—you never came to me, not once this whole time I've been here, Jon."

"I thought you would come to _me_," Jon replies incredulously, brows hiked high on his forehead. "Sansa—you're surrounded by your Queensguard day and night but I'm not even the Prince of Dragonstone anymore. I thought you knew that? Daenerys and Aegon have Prince Daeron and she's with child again, so I'm just the spare member of House Targaryen. There's _no one_ guarding my door and I've left it unlocked every night for you."

His last words are spoken half-into Sansa's mouth because she's pushed her hands into his curls and is pressing frantic kisses to his cheeks and lips, not caring how messy it looks or feels. He breathes her name and chases her mouth, digging his fingers into her hips. "So stupid, we've been so stupid," Sansa sighs, running her hands down his neck, gripping his upper arms, tilting her head back so that he can swirl his tongue against the soft skin at the corner of her jaw. "I've missed—I've missed you so much, Jon. I used to think I would never see you again. I never wanted to come back to this place but I needed to see you and then I thought you didn't—"

"Never," Jon tells her, cupping her cheeks. "_Never_. Always you, Sansa, it's always gonna be you." He kisses her again and again, teeth clicking together, and somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that her lips will be bruised tomorrow.

Her body feels like it's on fire, her head swims with more than the Arbor Gold she'd sipped in the Throne room, and her hands shake with desire as she jerks his shirt from his breeches. His stomach is warm and firm and rolls under her seeking fingers but the slim stretch of skin she can reach because of his still-laced vest isn't nearly enough. Jon groans and pulls his hands from her neck to unlace it all and shove it off his shoulders, and she follows immediately, pulling his shirt off with her fists.

She spreads her hands wide over his chest and drags down, catching skin with her nails, watches Jon's eyes go hazy when he tucks his fingers in the tight neckline of her gown and wiggles it downward, as far as it'll go, until her breasts ride high. "Gods, you look good in black," he groans and lowers his mouth to the swells of her breasts. His mouth is hot and greedy; so are the hands that cup her ribcage and tug her onto the balls of her feet.

Sansa wants him so badly she can taste it. All of the desire that she'd been holding at bay since the three dragons greeted her on the Northern Court's arrival, amplified with every accidental brush of skin at dinner, every crossed glance over the small council table, had been tamped down again and again with the imagination that he no longer cared for her like he used to care for her, no longer desired her like he used to desire her. They'd shared a dream of rebuilding Winterfell and a bed after a time, too, and that's how they had made Brandon, though Jon didn't know of that until she sent the news of the birth of her heir to King's Landing. It rolls through her like waves, now, rising with the slide of his tongue against her own and the tug of his teeth on her earlobe. Her fingers trip over his laces and he groans into her neck when she pulls his cock from his breeches and slides her thumb over the head.

"Fuck, Sansa," he hisses, resting his forehead against hers to stare down at her hand working over the length him, and she babbles back, "I know, I know, I know." Outside the door, a group of party guests rush by, laughing and jeering amongst themselves and Jon kisses Sansa to keep her words in her mouth and his groans in his own because doesn't let the threat of discovery stop her. Only when they pass does Jon pull away and jog to the door to slam it shut.

Sansa's eyes are glassy in the moonlight, lips swollen, dark spots rising up on her neck and breasts, and the glint of her hair starting to show where his fingers have rubbed the white powder away. She's the most beautiful thing he's ever beheld in his life and he goes willingly back into her arms when she reaches for them. Her fingers close around his cock again, squeeze at the base and twist over the head just like he knows she knows he likes. His head falls back with a groan, and she laps at the hollow of his throat, nibbles along his clavicle, slides her free hand down his back and below the loose waist of his breeches. There's no way he's waited this long to come in her hand, so he pushes her backwards until her hips bump abruptly into the wooden footboard of the bed and her teeth come down a little too sharply on his lip.

Her skirts are cumbersome and bunch between them and it frustrates the both of them. She keeps panting against his ear and telling him to _hurry, please, Jon, please_, and finally he grunts and turns her around, kisses the back of her neck as he tugs her skirts to her waist and her smallclothes to her ankles. He doesn't even need to see if she's wet enough for him because of all the lovely nonsense that spills from her beautiful mouth that he can't even _see_ right now, and he slips inside her _so easily_ and he doesn't know how he's gone these past few years without her.

They stay still for a moment, Jon's warm hands settling over hers on the top of the bedframe and his forehead resting in the crook of her neck, until she breathes his name pushes her hips back into his, feels his torso stretch out over her back. He cants his own hips forward, barely, just barely; the pressure and friction of it makes her feel _full_ again. "Please," she says, over and over, each time the word making his hips pick up speed and force until he's truly fucking her.

His grip on her hands tightens and he's babbling just as much into her ear as she is into the air, half of it not even registering, but she hears _love_ and _stay_ and _Brandon_ and _more, Sansa, a half-dozen if you want_ and she shudders, arches her back to pull him even deeper. He curses under his breath, lengthens his push and pull and she's as close as he is. "Lovely," Jon tells her, pulling a hand away from hers to slide under her heavy skirts and search out the top of her cunt. Her thighs tremble and her breath shortens into pants and Jon hisses _yes yes sweetling yes_ against her cheekbone until she pushes up onto her toes with a gasp and Jon catches her 'round her shoulders as they collapse to the floor.

She loves his urgency when he's about to come, the way his hands grab tighter, pull closer, so she braces her hands on the flagstones and rocks her hips over him in time to his shallow thrusts. He calls her name, pulls her to his chest with arms around her stomach like iron bands. She turns her head to slide her tongue into his mouth, grips his forearms with her hands, and that's how he comes, shaking against her back and under her thighs. They sit like that for several minutes, kissing and whispering in the dark, until his legs start to tingle, and he urges her to her feet.

"Do you want to see him?" she asks, smoothing her skirts back into place. "He's asleep, and I know you haven't been able to see him on your own."

It's the widest she's seen Jon smile since…since he last saw Bran the day before, dropping down to his knee to compliment the little prince on his new boots. "Of course I do."

They both know this Keep by heart; neither of them need a torch to show them the way from the Kitchens to Sansa's guest chambers. Her son, as the Prince of Winterfell, has his own bedchamber across the corridor from hers, and he's naught but a small dark lump in the big bed in the middle of the room. Sansa lights a candle from the low fire in the grate while Jon crosses to the bed and braces a hand on the mattress so that he can brush the boy's straight dark hair, made damp in sleep, away from his forehead.

"Brandon Stark," he murmurs. "Prince of Winterfell."

Sansa places the candle on the nightstand and hooks her arm through his. He's hers again, the tension and awkwardness and averted gazes that have plagued them since she first arrived are gone, and she feels as close to him as they were at Winterfell, like the last four years have been nothing but a blink of an eye. "I named him for the Builder," she says against his shoulder. "Not for _our_ Bran."

"He's still out there," Jon agrees quietly. "We would know."

Their son sighs—the dreamy kind that shudders on its way out of his chest—and frowns and together they watch him kick his legs under the blankets before his breathing evens out again. Jon's expression is a mix of wonder and regret, and it's that and everything he said to her in the guest room in the Kitchens that has her offering: "Come back with us. Come back with me. Marry me and come back with me."

His eyes are suddenly glassy in the candlelight, and Sansa says nothing about it, just tilts her head back to accept the kiss he lays on her mouth. Slow and sweet and thorough; everything about him that she loves and has missed and refuses to give up again. "Yes," he agrees. "Of course."

She leads him back to her bedchamber, where he sits at the foot of her bed and watches her brush all of the white powder from her hair in long, smooth strokes until it shines copper against her naked once more. Only then does he make his way to stand behind her vanity bench, run his palms down her bare arms, cup her breasts. He hums when slides a single finger between her thighs and finds her slippery again already.

"You were staring at me," she murmurs, face turned into his neck.

"Yes, I was," he agrees, pulling her to her feet with dark eyes full of promises he intends on keeping.

The bed is soft under their hands and knees, and Jon falls to his back before she does, pulling her up his body by her hands, then by her waist and the backs of her thighs until she straddles his face. She's trembling with anticipation by the time he parts her folds and lays the flat of his tongue on her, and her first orgasm comes on so quickly that he holds her in place and relentlessly drives her towards another, making all sorts of obscenely satisfied noises from low in his throat because he knows they make her toes curl and because he is, in fact, obscenely satisfied. She arches backwards when she peaks, auburn waves ghosting over his stomach, and this time he lets her twist and collapse onto the bed with a very un-queenly flop.

He sees the faint silver lines on her belly for the first time in the low light of the fire and traces them with reverent fingers. "I wish I could have been there with you," he tells her, chin settled on her hipbone.

"Me too," she slurs, voice thick with content and exhaustion, fingers sliding into his curls. "You will be, next time."

* * *

Something sharp pokes into his naked shoulder, and Jon is instantly alert, eyes snapping open in the dim early morning light. He's slightly disoriented, especially since there's something heavy and warm pressed against his side—_Sansa_, he remembers only a split second later, legs tangled up in his and hair spilling onto his pillow like flames.

"Jon Snow," a girl hisses from behind him, and he whips his head around to meet the only other set of Stark-grey eyes in all of Westeros.

"What are you doing in here?" he whispers back, and Arya's scowl deepens.

"I'm the Queen's Protection, you idiot." She's still in her blue dress, the pretty one that had him double and triple guessing whether it really was Arya or an eerily-similar lady-in-waiting of Sansa's. "I've been looking for her all night since we got separated. If I'd known she'd met up with you I would've started checking beds hours ago."

Jon's cheeks start to burn and Arya rolls her eyes. "You both thought you were _so_ sneaky back then, but you can't out-sneak me." She swirls away with a whirl of skirts, "_amateurs"_ muttered under her breath.

Arya's older now and knows better than to slam the door in her wake, but the click of the latch is still loud enough in the quiet early morning. Beside him, Sansa twitches at the sound. Her eyelids flutter and she rolls into his chest, her mumbled words nearly lost into his skin when she says: "'s that 'rya?"

He hums in assent and pulls her close, fingers tripping over the _other_ silvery lines that crisscross her back. "Go back to sleep," he says into her hair, taking a deep breath of the smell of lavender and rose that clings to it. But she opens a single blue eye, slings a thigh over his and Jon _prays_ that the blankets were thick enough that Arya hadn't realized that at least one part of him had been wide awake before she'd stuck him with her weirdly-strong finger. "Or not," he concedes with a shrug, rolling onto his side to face her. "I serve at your pleasure, your Grace."


End file.
